Our History

Mill Hollow’s Water-Powered Mills

Near the middle of the town of Alstead, nature created a small gorge with a brook running through and bedrock near the surface, making it an ideal location for the placement of mills. Less than a quarter-mile upstream is a small lake, called by the first settlers “the Great Pond,” which offered a steady supply of water. The length of the gorge proved sufficient for as many as five mills and their related buildings operating together, and these mills became the economic base for the small but busy industrial center known as Mill Hollow.

Settlement in Alstead by the English began in 1763. Agents for the proprietors of new towns not only allotted land to the settlers, but often worked to attract them by providing some of the services the new settlers would need. Among these were the first mills by which to provide lumber for building and grind grain for food. Timothy Delano, Alstead's agent, built two mills: the first a sawmill, about 1765, on his own land in Alstead Center and the second a gristmill in the gorge described above, about 1767, on Warren Brook in East Alstead.

Delano sold his grist mill only two years later to Israel Jones, who made two improvements. He built a sawmill just below the gristmill and made a dam across the natural outlet of the Great Pond, raising the water level to increase the ready supply. Jones and all his successors in title would have the right to open the gate when necessary to run the mills. Only two years later, Jones sold all of the above to Simon Baxter. Baxter became Alstead's outstanding Tory and had operated his mills only a few years before his lands and property were confiscated and he fled to Nova Scotia.

After the Revolution, Baxter's lands were purchased by Levi Warren. Warren built a large house overlooking the Pond, just above the mills, and ran it as a tavern. The spot was ideal for this, as it stood at the junction of two stage routes. A map of 1806 shows that his house overlooked a store and post office, a sawmill, a gristmill, a trip hammer, a carding mill, and a fulling mill. The neighborhood was labeled Warren's Mills, although probably not all the mills belonged to him. A scattering of small farms dotted the countryside around.

Sheep farming developed in a big way in New Hampshire during the first 30 years of the 19th century, providing a period of real prosperity. At its peak, Alstead had 6,000 sheep, and many mills developed to aid in the processing of raw wool. No machine weaving was done in Mill Hollow, but carding, spinning, and fulling all promoted the production of wool fabric.

Ezra Kidder began his milling career at the lower end of the gorge by building a mill in which to grind potatoes for the making of starch. He later enlarged the starch factory building to include a sawmill. Nearby he built a small spinning mill, notable then for making two threads at once. At the upper end of the gorge, he purchased the fulling mill opposite the gristmill and operated it for many years. Upstairs in the gristmill, Gideon Delano made hats from wheat straw early on, and later someone installed a carding machine there. These, together with Ezra Kidder's starch production, served to make Mill Hollow a real center for textile related industry. Ezra, identified as “clothier” on deeds, built a substantial brick house overlooking the gorge where he and his wife, Calista, raised a large family.

For all these operations, falling water provided the power that turned the drums for carding, ran the mechanism for spinning, and raised the hammers for pounding fabric (which together with washing constituted the “fulling,” or finishing, of cloth). Near the starch factory someone had a blacksmith shop, sometimes called wheelwright's shop, and water raised the great trip hammers used there. What the mills produced reflected the economic patterns of the developing country. As people became more settled, their needs changed. As demands changed and mills changed hands, the goods produced often changed as well.

Changing Hands, Changing Use

As the era of sheep farming subsided and transportation improved, the production of lumber and wood products for a wider market developed. Mill owners by the names of Banks, Messer, and Kidder became prominent in Mill Hollow at this time. They operated next to each other, cheek by jowl, with no apparent attempt at harmony. In a setting where cooperation and working it out could only have benefited them all, spitefulness reigned.

Gardner Banks, in 1859, bought the old Jones sawmill and made improvements. Up until this time all sawmills in the area were of the up and down type. Banks replaced his with a new circular saw, which had come into use first in the 1840s. He replaced the water wheel with a new 30-inch turbine. At the same time he and his wife, Ella, living in the Levi Warren house, carried on some of the early tourist trade. They kept a popular picnic ground by the pond, by this time called Lake Warren, rented rowboats, and stabled as many as 30 horses at once for the picnickers.

Frank Messer made wood products at the mill on the site of the original gristmill. He got out shingles, chair stock, dowels, bucket handles, sap spouts, moldings, etc., and made cider. In addition he and his wife, Nettie, carried on a tourist business in competition with Banks, just next door, in what was called the Cupola House.

Erastus Kidder, great-nephew of Ezra, took over what had been Ezra's starch factory. Following Ezra, a Mr. Howard had converted this mill to the making of bobbins for use by weaving mills elsewhere. Next came Messer who made rakes. Erastus, or 'Rastus, and sometimes just “Rat,” now made shingles, lath, rakes, and hardwood stock, and sawed and planed lumber. He was adept at maintaining mill machinery, doing work for other millers as well as his own. Upstairs in the mill were a machinist's lathe, planer, and drill press, plus an anvil and forge for blacksmithing.

Kidder was a man of some mechanical genius and had many clever devices all through his mill. He invented a new kind of carriage for a shingle mill with an up-and-down action, which he patented in 1876. An ink stamp was made with an image of it for printing on paper, now in the possession of his great-granddaughter.

The mills of all three above produced a great quantity of sawdust, a very important by-product. Sawdust served as bedding for large farm animals, as insulation for the storage of the year's ice supply, and as banking around houses in winter.

Sources:

Heman Chase, Short History of Mill Hollow, The Early Industrial Center of East Alstead, New Hampshire, 1969.

Helen H. Frink, Alstead Through the Years: 1763-1990. Alstead Historical Society, 1992.

Marion Nicholl Rawson, New Hampshire Borns a Town, E. P. Dutton and Co., Inc., 1942.

Files of the Alstead Historical Society

In 1910, architect Hartley Dennett of Massachusetts moved to the house of Ezra Kidder. He tore down the remains of the Messer Mill on the site of Delano's gristmill and by 1916 had erected, on the same foundations, a small mill that was partially powered by water. Much of its machinery came from other local mills no longer functioning. This mill served Dennett as a woodworking shop for the various house remodeling jobs he did locally. A spacious loft upstairs was used for community discussions, craft sessions, and dancing. The mill passed to his stepson, Heman Chase, who used it for his own wood and ironwork projects until his death in 1988. Chase also carried on woodworking classes for neighborhood children for many years. More a hobby and community resource than economic power source to Dennett and Chase, the water power aspect of this mill served to demonstrate this part of the town's history to scores of visitors.

The Mill Hollow Heritage Association was created to take stewardship of the mill. To learn more about the rehabilitation of Chase’s Mill, watch the video below.